


By Now I'm Sure You Know

by jjtaylor



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Knifeplay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-25 00:52:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3790492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjtaylor/pseuds/jjtaylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While on the World Contamination Tour, Frank watches Gerard pop the balloons during Planetary. He never realized he had a knife kink until he saw the very competent way Gerard handles the knife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Now I'm Sure You Know

Frank's looking over Gerard's shoulder at the computer. In his email are a bunch of photographs from Minneapolis that were taken by Matt's sister. She has a good eye, and Frank's always impressed by anyone who can get any kind of deliberate shot from the pit. Gerard's clicking through the shots quickly, opening them all in rapid succession. He lingers for a moment over one of the best ones, a shower of confetti from a balloon, Gerard's hand raised from where he'd popped it, Gerard's expression ecstatic. Frank feels Planetary moving through his fingers like he's back up on stage, where he always understands exactly where he and Gerard stand. In the music, there's no question. He remembers how eager Gerard had been, wielding the knife like a toy, the balloons just another gift he was giving their fans.

"Go back," Frank says, when Gerard clicks away. Frank wants to look at the picture longer, to see if he can see the knife glinting in Gerard's hand.

"It's a good shot, huh?" Gerard says.

"You were pretty good with that knife," Frank says.

Gerard turns in his chair, just enough be looking up at Frank. He doesn't say anything for a minute, and Frank feels the silence hang heavy.

"If I cut you, are you gonna bleed confetti?" Gerard asks. It's in the wrong tone of voice for it to be entirely a joke and Frank thinks in that moment that it might actually be something he'd do, let Gerard cut him. Frank's let Gerard do a lot of things to him, but it suddenly seems like it was all a very long time ago.

"Don't know," Frank says, "Never tried anything like that before."

"You asking me to?" Gerard asks. Frank isn't sure if he is asking, or if he's allowed to.

"You don't have to - " Frank squirms away but Gerard places a hand over his arm, fingers just tight enough to stop him.

"But you want me to." It's not a question. There is realization in Gerard's eyes.

"It's - " There are all sorts of words on the tip of Frank's tongue - wrong, dangerous, gross - but what comes out was, "new."

"We're always growing, Frankie," Gerard whispers.

"I don't even know - " Frank says, and he kind of hopes Gerard will finish his sentence for him but Gerard just waits. "I don't even know what I want."

"I think that will be easy to find out," Gerard says. He gets up and goes digging in his backpack, finally pulling out a pocket knife, the kind the techs always keep on hand, the kind of knife ready to do anything.

Gerard opens it and Frank tenses. Gerard touches a fingertip to the blade cautiously, then more gingerly . "It's not very sharp," Gerard says.

"That's, uh, that's fine," Frank says. His mouth is dry and Gerard can hear it in his voice, because the look Gerard turns on him is Gerard being infinitely pleased.

Gerard traces the knife blade over his own knuckles, and then over the back of his hand. Frank can't look away. Gerard grins up at him, and says, "You like that?"

Frank nods, clears his throat and says, "Yeah. But you don't have to - "

"Stop worrying," Gerard says, still moving the knife like he's tracing out something out on a piece of paper. He stops abruptly, holds up the knife and examines it. Frank doesn't know what he's looking for. "Here, give me your hand."

Frank holds out his hand, and Gerard rubs his fingers over it, like he's feeling Frank's skin for the first time. Gerard covers Frank's hand with his, pressing Frank's hand palm-down on the desk and then closing a hand around Frank's wrist. Not tight, but - there. Gerard lifts the knife to Frank's index finger, just the slightest touch, barely enough for Frank to feel. Frank inhales sharply and Gerard stops.

"This ok?"

"Yeah," Frank says. "Keep going."

Gerard does, bringing the knife over the back of Frank's hand, following the line of the bone. Gerard lets go of Frank's wrist and pushes his sleeve up. "It's like a maze," he says, as he brings the knife up Frank's forearm. He's pressing harder now, just enough to tug at the skin, just before a scratch, and Frank watches, mesmerized, as Gerard moves the blade in small, sure movements, following the path of blank skin in between all of Frank's ink. Gerard goes all the way up to Frank's elbow, zigzagging across Frank's forearm before he looks up at Frank, bottom lip between his teeth, eyes wide.

"We should probably stop," Frank says breathily. Gerard immediately sets down the knife and puts a hand on Frank's cheek. Frank closes his eyes and breathes deep.

"You all right, Frankie?"

"It's ok, I'm good," Frank says. "I'm just a little - too good," he says. He opens his eyes and sees Gerard's slightly flushed face. His eyes fall on Gerard's mouth and he licks his lips. The corners of Gerard's mouth tug into a smile.

"Too good?" Gerard says, close to Frank's ear and Frank shudders.

"Yeah, who knew," Frank says.

"Well, I know now," Gerard says, and then he leans in and kisses Frank, a gentle press of lips. It feels like a mixed message, or maybe it's a very clear one. "Here," Gerard says, and guiding Frank over to the couch, pulling the blanket over Frank's shoulders. "Just sit here for a few minutes and close your eyes."

Frank wants to say that he'd actually rather get up and go jerk off in the bathroom, but once he closes his eyes and lets the warmth of the blanket settle over him, he realizes that he's exhausted, and within minutes, he's asleep.

When he wakes up, Gerard and Mikey are arguing over a Chinese menu. Frank rubs at his eyes, sits up and starts folding the blanket. He can feel just the slightest tightness along his arm, where Gerard had pressed the knife like a pen between the ink already deep in his skin. He pushes up the arm of his shirt and looks for some proof, some skin-deep memory of what they'd done, but there's only the slightest bit of raised pink skin, nothing more indelible than the sleep lines he could feel on his face.

He goes over to the kitchen to make sure he gets in his Chinese food order.

 

Frank starts keeping a knife in his pocket all the time. It's not as weird as he thinks it's going to be. Most of the time he forgets it's there, but every once and a while it comes in useful, to open a package, to pull of the tags of a new shirt. It's only when they're on the bus in the dark that Frank pulls the knife out and presses his fingers to the blade, sometimes dragging it lightly over his palm, but never enough to scratch, and never up past his wrist. He doesn't trust himself to know how hard to press to be just enough.

 

He's hanging out in Gerard's hotel room in Kildare, after their radio interview got rescheduled for the morning and Frank was too jetlagged to want to go out exploring with Mikey and Ray. The time zones were all fucked up so he couldn't even call home without waking someone, and he was almost too tired to sleep.

"You're quiet tonight, Frankie," Gerard says. "You homesick?"

"I just can't settle," Frank says. He misses home, misses so many things all at once.

Gerard slides closer on the couch, tucks his knee up over Frank's thigh. He's homesick for that, too.

"What is it?" Gerard asks. "What do you need?"

And that's the word that gets him. Need. He doesn't know what's under his skin tonight, but he knows what will make it better.

"Do you think you could - could you - " he pulls the knife out of his pocket and hands it to Gerard on his open palm.

He dares a look at Gerard's face and he's not sure what he reads there. He knows what he wants to see - heat and acceptance, but maybe he's too tired for this, because he can't tell if Gerard wants -

"Ok," Gerard says, taking the knife from Frank, their fingers brushing. "I can do that for you."

Frank pushes up his sleeve, holds his arm out, but Gerard shakes his head.

"Not your arms," Gerard says. "Just in case."

Frank doesn't think Gerard could possibly cut him badly enough that it would effect his playing, but Frank doesn't want to take the risk either.

"Ok," Frank says. "So - "

"Take off your shirt," Gerard says. Frank untangles his hands from where they're tucked into the cardigan, and slips it off, and then pulls off his t-shirt.

"Do you want - could I lie down?"

"Let's get on the bed."

Frank feels like he's moving through molasses, the air-conditioning on his skin making him shiver. Gerard is right behind him, pressing a warm hand between his shoulders.

"Should I - " Frank says, stopping right before he sits down on the bed, feeling suddenly unsure.

"Whatever you want, Frankie."

"On my stomach, is that good?"

"Yeah, I'd like to work on your back," Gerard says.

Frank likes the lilt in Gerard's voice, the idea that Gerard's attention is all focusing in on Frank.

Frank settles himself on the bed, angled so his feet are just hanging off but his head's resting on one of the pillows. He smells the sharp scent of alcohol and realizes Gerard's wiping a swab over the knife, and then flicking on his lighter on and running the flame up and down the blade.

"Should have done this last time," Gerard says.

"Did you read about it?" Frank says. He can't really imagine Gerard doing a wikipedia search for 'knife kink.'

"No, I've done this before," Gerard says absently, still running the lighter up over the blade. "I should have done this when we first played, but I wasn't really sure how far you were going to want to go."

"You thought I was going to freak out?" Frank says, trying to cover his shock that Gerard had done this before, and that Frank never had any idea.

"It doesn't matter," Gerard says. "I should always be careful."

"You won't hurt me," Frank says.

"Actually, I will," Gerard says, setting the lighter down on the beside table, whispering the words close to Frank's ear. "But there's a safe way to do it."

Frank shudders and presses his face into the pillow.

"You ready, Frankie?" Gerard says. "You tell me when you want to stop, like last time."

"Yeah," Frank says. "Go ahead."

The first thing that Frank feels is Gerard's warm fingers, tracing down the middle of his back, and then, the warm metal of the knife blade, pressing down, not hard enough to cut him, just hard enough for him to feel that it's there. For him to know what Gerard's going to do. Gerard traces so lightly with his fingers and the knife that it's almost ticklish, and Frank shifts on the bed.

"Stay still for me, Frankie," Gerard says. Gerard presses his open hand against Frank's tailbone. "You have to stay still, ok?"

"Ok," Frank says, and tries his best to settle, to sit still. He knows he's not doing a good enough job, though, because Gerard stops, rubs his hand over his back. "I'm sorry, I don't know - "

"Shhh," Gerard says, but it's harsh and it startles Frank, makes his heart pound. He shifts on the bed to try to look at Gerard but Gerard's sudden movement stops him. Gerard presses a hand to the back of Frank's neck, like he's about to grab him by the scruff. "We're gonna try something different," Gerard says. Before Frank can ask what he means, whether this means Gerard's not going to use the knife, Gerard is rearranging himself on the bed so that he's straddling Frank's legs, his weight on the back of his thighs.

"Oh," Frank says, the sound muffled against the pillow.

"You're gonna stay still for me," Gerard says. "You're going to do it because I told you to. You're going to do it because you want to make me happy."

"Yeah," Frank says. He feels dizzy and hot all over.

"That's right, Frankie," Gerard says. "That's more like it." Gerard presses a kiss to Frank's neck, his hair tickling as it brushes Frank's face, and then the soft and then the soft trail of Gerard's fingers across his shoulder blades, and then the touch of the knife.

Frank gasps, but it's much easier to stay still this time, with the reassuring press of Gerard's weight holding him down, with the sound of Gerard's voice murmuring encouragement.

"That's right, just stay still, just let me do this for you. Let me drag this knife all over your beautiful back. Let me write all over you with the blade. There are plenty of ways I could mark you up if that's what you want, but this is different. This is a little more to the point, huh, Frankie, your bare back and me on top of you with a knife. That's hard to misunderstand."

"Please," Frank breathes out, and Gerard hasn't stopped moving his fingers and the knife over Frank's skin, not so soft that he can't feel it but not so hard that it bites.

"Please what?" Gerard asks. "Softer? Harder?"

"I want to feel it," Frank says.

Gerard makes a noise low in his throat.

"Yes, I can make sure you feel it," Gerard says, and then the knife is itchy and hot as Gerard pulls the blade down Frank's ribcage so slowly. He can feel the tug of it, he can feel the scratch it's leaving behind. He wants to look, wants to see if Gerard has broken his skin enough to make it bleed, but he can't move. Gerard told him not to, so he just takes deep breaths as Gerard brings the knife up the over side of his ribs, down the dip of his spine, so close to his hips pressed into the bed as though Gerard could make a circle and just keep going, flip Frank around onto his back and then onto his stomach again, spinning him around the fixed point of the knife.

"Can you feel that?" Gerard whispers, still moving the knife up and down and Frank isn't sure he's ever been so aware of his back, of his skin, of being in his body like this.

He can't find the word to answer so he just breathes, squeezes his eyes shut, tries to make a sound like sounds like yes.

Gerard continues with his steady fluid motions, writing secret messages into Frank's skin. He imagines intricate designs woven in the spaces between his tattoos, pink and flushed and new. At some point he realizes Gerard has shifted his weight, and is rubbing his fingers gently into the tight muscles of Frank's neck. Frank sighs into the touch and Gerard rubs up into Frank's scalp and back down again and then he shifts his weight off Frank entirely, so he's sitting on the edge of the bed.

"I think that's good for now, Frank, don't you?" Gerard says. There's just enough room in the statement that Frank could ask for more, and even though Frank wants to stay just like this and never move, he feels like this is just enough. He's hyper-aware of his back, of his body, of the rise and fall of his chest.

"Yeah, I'm good," Frank says, slow and a little slurred.

"Ok, stay right here, I'll be right back." Frank doesn't think he could move anyway, so he's happy to stay. He hears Gerard in the bathroom, running the faucet. He comes back with a warm washcloth that feels so different from the knife that Frank startles when Gerard presses it to his back.

"Does it hurt?" Gerard says, quick, pulling the cloth back.

"No," Frank says. "It's just different."

"Ok," Gerard says. "I didn't think any of the cuts were that deep, but let me take a look."

"It's fine," Frank says, and Gerard still wipes the cloth carefully over Frank's back, and then gets up once again.

"I'm just going to put some Neosporin on a few of these scratches, and then you're going to put on a clean t-shirt and go to sleep."

"Ok," Frank says. He lets Gerard rub the cool ointment on his back even if it makes him shiver, and when Gerard hands him a t-shirt, he slips it over his head. The kiss Gerard presses to the corner of his mouth could be gentle, a gesture to close the moment between them like it had last time, but Frank knows there's something simmering beneath this foggy warm calm, a tension that wouldn't let him sleep if he tried. A need for Gerard to be closer. He surges forward, unable to resist the heat of Gerard's mouth, the reassuring press of Gerard's hands on his shoulders. A second later, Gerard pulls back, and gives Frank a concerned look.

"It's fine, it's fine, come on," Frank says, turning around and reaching up to take the tube of Neosporin from his hands. "It doesn't even hurt."

"You should lie down, Frank," Gerard says. "I'm sure you're - "

"Don't tell me what I am," Frank says sharply, and he kisses Gerard so their tongues slide together, Gerard's mouth hot and wet and open. Gerard groans.

"We don't have to - " Gerard says, breaking away from Frank's kiss.

"We have to," Frank says, and mouths at Gerard's neck.

"A kink doesn't always have to be sexual," Gerard says, though is voice is noticeably unsteady.

"Well it definitely is this time," Frank says. "I need you to touch me. I need you to make me come."

Gerard groans and kisses Frank back this time, clear and intent.

"Yeah," Gerard says. "Me too."

"Anyway, it's only polite to let a guy blow you after he's had his knife all over you," Frank says.

Gerard laughs, and then his mouth is on his Frank's neck.

It's funny that Gerard's tugging off Frank's jeans now, since Frank just put on a shirt, but before Frank can make a crack about it, Gerard's sucking him and groaning as he does it, like he needed this more than Frank.

"Fuck," Frank gasps, and slides down from his elbows, head just missing the pillow, which slips onto the floor. He feels the sting immediately, all of the tiny scrapes and scratches Gerard drew onto his back, and he moans and arches into Gerard's mouth, rubbing his back against the mattress to chase that sharp jolt of not-quite pain.

He grips the sheets tight in his fists, presses his shoulders back, feels the tug of his t-shirt. "Gee - fuck - " he gasps, and rocks back into the mattress as he comes in Gerard's mouth.

Gerard's laughing as he wipes his mouth on his sleeve, warm and pleased. He tugs at Frank to sit up, and Frank shudders as Gerard's hands slip beneath the shirt and Gerard laughs again.

"Just checking to make sure you're ok," Gerard murmurs.

"You should believe me when I say I'm great," Frank says.

Gerard rubs his hands over Frank's stomach, and across his chest. "I want to make you bleed, Frankie," Gerard says, a soft confession.

"Yeah," Frank says quickly.

Gerard closes his eyes, taking slow, measured breaths. Frank pushes him back on the bed, climbs on top of him, and shoves his hand inside Gerard's pants.

Gerard makes a wordless sound of agreement and kisses Frank as Frank strokes him, Frank's wrist catching on the elastic of Gerard's boxers but Frank can't even be bothered with shoving Gerard's clothes out of the way.

"Love it when you need to prove a point," Gerard says when Frank breaks the kiss drag his teeth against the collar of Gerard's shirt.

"Prove it for me," Frank says, he sucks hard at Gerard's collarbone through his shirt as he rubs the underside of Gerard's cock in just the way he knows makes him crazy.

"Fuck, Frankie," Gerard says, so quietly, and then he comes, wet and messy against Frank's hand and the inside of his pants.

"I said ok," Frank says, panting against Gerard's chest.

"You did," Gerard says after he catches his breath.

"Ok," Frank says, and Gerard wraps his arms around Frank, smoothing his hands down over Frank's tender back.


End file.
